To make matters worse, the second- and third-year students were difficult to control. One lad would arrive drunk and either climb up the classroom curtains, or else hang upside down under his desk, with his legs hooked under one end and his arms under the other. What to do? There was no means of communicating with the school office. Nothing. I felt abandoned, so alone, in an impossible scenario, unable to do anything about it. It was only much later, when I was a qualified high school teacher, that I fully understood that my being forced to work in such a setting in that high school, must have been illegal. I had been used to give the students’ regular teacher a free period. I felt so abandoned.
I hated my lesson times, each of which lasted an hour. It was so difficult for me. The students, most of whom were boarders, coming in from outlying areas, were often belligerent and understandably unwilling to listen to me address them in a language that they didn’t understand.
I found that the staff were friendly, though. Many of them were recently qualified teachers who had been sent by the government to teach for a year or two in this desolate part of France before they could apply for teaching posts elsewhere. I couldn’t imagine that anyone would ever want to stay in Murat. It was so far removed from the modern world.
My life was hard, and the weather was appalling as the snow and ice set in for months on end, but I made friends with one young math teacher, so visited her frequently in her rented room. We discovered we had the same birthday although she was three years older than me. At one stage, she shared her accommodation with a good friend of her younger sister, the latter at university in Clermont-Ferrand. This young lady wanted to change schools for her final year, so she asked if she could transfer to Murat, and share a room with her friend’s sister. So, share they did; the one a teacher, the other a student at the school, but both sharing a double bed in a teacher’s accommodation?! Was this permissible? It surprised me, but I discovered that it was all above board, and wasn’t unusual for sisters or friends to share a bed in those days. It saved on space.
I was also struck by how few clothes the lady teachers had. They possessed only three or four beautifully tailored outfits which they wore day after day. I was used to a different way of dressing in Africa. We ladies wore cotton dresses which were changed, washed, and ironed every day. I was used to taking a bath every day. Cleanliness was the next best thing to godliness in Rhodesia. Not so in Murat in the late 60s. Even the student boarders were permitted only one shower a week, timed for a few minutes only. I shouldn’t think that the adults bathed or showered more frequently than that, either. Clothes needed to be dry cleaned, so were worn endlessly before being cleaned. Not everyone wore deodorant, either, and ladies rarely shaved their arms or legs, even in summer. However, this was the norm and I had to accept it, trying not to show my distaste. I followed my own, very different routine.
